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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26563402">Because I Love You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/vodka_and_some_sass/pseuds/vodka_and_some_sass'>vodka_and_some_sass</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Emotional Hurt, F/F, F/M, Lesbian Character, Mentions of Suicide Attempt, Pyromania, Schizophrenia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 09:54:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,874</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26563402</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/vodka_and_some_sass/pseuds/vodka_and_some_sass</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Lee’s life sentence has been revised and she is must visit Chris, her ex boyfriend, to explain the events that led up to her sentencing.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Because I Love You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I held the phone, hoping he would reply. It had been a long two years without him and would have been longer, maybe forever if Brian hadn’t intervened. My mind reeled back to the conversation we had earlier that day.</p><p>
  <em>“Did you tell him the truth?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I had to think about that question. “I didn’t lie.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“But you didn’t tell him the truth, the whole truth. Yet you expected him to understand?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I expected him to believe me, which he didn’t. That is why I asked him to leave.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You have to tell him the truth. That is your assignment for this week. And if you don’t, I’ll put you back into the trauma unit where you will be forced to do as they say. I know you hate this but you need to do it. You’ve put it off for far too long.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“If I don’t?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I’ll have to tell the doctor you aren’t recovering from the trauma of what happened. I don’t want to do this, but it’s been months since you’ve been back and you have barely made any progress. He would have helped you so much, but you shut him out. You owe him the truth. The faster you do it, the faster all of us can move on and take the next steps.”</em>
</p><p>It was the fear of the sterile white walls and the suffocating caretakers at the recovery home that persuaded me to text him almost immediately. My next session was in three days and I had to do this before that. It would have been a better option to call but in two years, I didn’t know what had changed. My phone blinked, telling me I had a new message.</p><p>
  <em>‘Tomorrow is a good day. Come then. I’m still at our old place. –Chris’</em>
</p><p>I forced myself to breathe. The nervousness and anxiety set in. I felt my heart rate shoot up and my lungs refused to work. I counted to fifteen in my head, letting my heart settle into a slower pace. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes but one year in a secure prison facility had changed me. I wish the tears would fall but they didn’t. In one year, I had learned that to survive, you needed to show you were strong, whether you were or not.</p><p>I wrapped the blanket around me, listening to Anna’s quiet snores from the other end of the studio apartment she let me share. Through it all, she had stayed by my side, giving me the support I didn’t want but needed. Again tears graced my eyes again as her words flitted around my head. <em>“He would have been there for you too, had you let him. You know that.”</em></p><p>I now knew that he would have been there, but back then, I didn’t have the courage to believe anyone. I was convinced that the world had turned its back to me and that this was a battle I would have had to fight alone. How wrong I had been. I curled up tighter, dreading and anticipating the visit I would have to make tomorrow. My heart clenched at the thought of seeing him again and for the first time in two years, one lone tear slid down my cheek.</p><p>The next day dawned too early for my liking. The tension weighed heavily on my chest, like a boulder that refused to budge. I stared into the cupboard as my fingers itched to send him a message and just forgo the whole ordeal. I must have lost track of time because the next thing I know, Anna was laying out a black polo tee shirt and denims for me. She rested her chin on my head, letting me know that she was there for me. “You need to do this, for both you and him,” she whispered, rubbing my back soothingly. I nodded, getting dressed and into the cab that she had waiting for me. </p><p>Half an hour later, I found myself staring at the polished door of the apartment that we had picked together. I took in a deep breath and raised my hand to knock but the door swung open before I could. The first thing I noticed about him was the way the shirt hung off him. His eyes had bags under them and his cheeks had hollowed in. He looked sick. He motioned for me to come in. I stepped in and was embraced by familiarity. Yet a good deal had changed as well. The picture collage that I had made and kept adding to was gone, the wall bare where it had been. I saw bits and pieces of me and bits and pieces of Chris around the house, but there was no evidence of there ever being an ‘us’. Guilt tugged at my heart at the thought of ‘us’. I glanced around. The door to my old room was slightly ajar. The bed had been changed and the wall that had been covered in soot had been repainted a light shade of purple, the colour I had originally wanted it to be.‘<em>This is not home anymore,</em>’ I strictly reminded myself. </p><p>“Sit Lee, you aren’t a stranger here.” His voice had changed too. It was huskier, the kind that was a tell-tale sign of smoking. To confirm my suspicions, he pulled out a box of cigarettes and lit one. Out of instinct I reached for one but he drew them away. He shook his head. “Brian told me that you weren’t allowed, it isn’t helping with your health.”</p><p>“You spoke to Brian about me?” I let disbelief colour my voice. I hadn’t expected to hear that. But then again, Chris had always been the more sensitive and caring one among us. His warm brown eyes grew dark with sadness as he stared at me.</p><p>“I never gave up on you. Even when you said all of that, confessed to all of it, I couldn’t.” His voice cracked at the end. Two years ago, a statement like that would have made me break down and cry. He would have gathered me in his arms and told me that even if nothing was okay, he would be there. I think he expected me to break down, but two years had not left me unaffected. I braced myself. </p><p>“We need to talk.” I cursed internally when my words quivered. He nodded and offered me whiskey. It never failed to amaze me how well he could read me and had seen how much this meant to me. I contemplated his offer before declining. I needed to do this sober. Last time I had spoken to him, my decisions had been affected by fear, rage and hurt. If I drank now, I would later use it to excuse my actions. No. I needed to do this while being completely focussed and knowing the consequences. I think that also surprised him. I had never said no to strong alcohol in the past. </p><p>He reclined on the couch, wrapping my safety blanket around himself unconsciously. “Start at the beginning, Lee. Don’t leave anything out, even if you think you should. I want- no, I need to know the whole truth about what you went through, how you felt. I need to understand what I did to make you like this.” There it was again, the break in his voice. I steadied my breath, folded my hands in my lap and closed my eyes.</p><p>“It began with the day you called and told me that you would be travelling to England for the lectures. You said you’d be home late. I decided to go home and make a celebratory dinner. You had worked so hard to get in for the series, going to teach at the university as well as juggling your own studies. So I stopped at the mart. When I reached the billing counter, the cashier gave me a note. Three words, meet me outside. I was curious, he told me a kid had given it. I asked him to continue billing as I headed out. I barely made it to the parking lot before it blew up.” I faltered as those images flashed across my mind, as vivid as they had been that day. For the second time, I felt my cheeks moisten as a tear slid down and touched the corner of my lips. I wiped it away before continuing. “I heard the glass shatter before anything else. I turned only to see the young boy at the billing counter fly past me and smash into a car. The look of surprise never even turned to terror. I could hear screams inside what was left of the mart. I watched as fire billowed from the alcohol section. I didn’t move till the emergency response team arrived. You know already that I was the only survivor. What you don’t know is that the parking lot had been deserted when I came out.” I paused to take a breath. I refused to open my eyes, afraid of what I would see on my ex-boyfriend’s face. “I could have been in there, I could have helped. Instead I stood there, stock still. I was first taken to the hospital and from there to the FBI headquarters. I was their prime suspect, the only survivor. The cameras around hadn’t seen anyone or anything out of the ordinary. No little kid leaving. I later realised that even the child would have died. They had no proof that I did it so they let me go. I remained under surveillance for a while, but there was nothing suspicious in my behaviour. They had to let me go. They didn’t buy my story about the note. They put it down as an accident in the reports.” </p><p>I heard Chris start to say something but I cut him off before he could say anything. “You went to England and returned with these beautiful gifts. Three months had passed since the incident at the mart. You knew that it was still fresh in my mind and tried to make me feel better. But I didn’t need that. I needed to know that it would never happen again. You told me it wasn’t my fault, that I shouldn’t beat myself over it. Oh, if only you knew. But I let my guard down. And it was precisely then that disaster struck again. I was waiting in the lounge at the company that was pulling out from the partnership for the new branch of the animal shelter we were planning to build. I was there to plead, even though I knew they would still pull out. There wasn’t any profit coming in. Before the meeting, I stepped out of the building to buy myself a soda. This time I watched as the lower levels of the corporate building caved inwards with the impact of the explosions from the two buildings beside it, one of which was where I worked. This time I was prepared to help but I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to run into the buildings that were collapsing on themselves to save people. Instead, I ran. It wasn’t long before they found me. I stayed in that dingy jail cell, waiting for you to bail me out and all I could think about was how messed up my life had become, how messed up I had become. I thought that seeing you would bring me comfort, strength but when you walked into my cell, I could see the uncertainty that you tried to mask. That was when I began to shut you out. I was scared that you would hate me more than I was scared of what was happening to me. I was scared because you had reason to hate me.”</p><p>I stopped for a few seconds, wondering if Chris had anything to say. I still refused to open my eyes. When he said nothing, I picked up where I left off. “The trial was long and dreary. I wanted you to be there for the hearings so badly but at the same time I did not want you to witness the prosecutors accuse me of destruction of property and arson. I didn’t want you to hear them call me a murderer. The four months that trial went on for were intense. I was so lost in my thoughts half the time that I failed to connect the dots. I failed to see you were in danger.”</p><p>This time Chris interrupted, startled. “I was in danger?” I nodded, looking down at my lap, refusing to look at him.</p><p>“After the first few hearings, things started to happen around you. They were subtle which is why it never crossed my mind. Your room switches short circuited, your car had a fuel leak, that incident when you nearly swerved off the road because of the wheel that was loose. I heard you tell me about these, but I was so far lost to my own fear and terror that I barely even listened to what you were saying. It was the fire that made it click. You were my next target.”</p><p>“You did those to me.” Hurt laced his husky whisper as he tried to make sense of the story. I did not deny his accusation.</p><p>“You were so angry with me that day. You had taken me out for dinner, hoping to get my mind off things, hoping I would open up to you. Instead I crawled further back into my shell and screamed at you, saying things I would never have said under normal circumstances. I walked out and headed home. I was so angry. I don’t know why, but I was. I didn’t even register the smoke until I was standing above the fire. There it was. Every gift you ever brought me, all our photographs together, each letter that you wrote to me. Even those small notes that you left around the house. Anything to do with ‘us’. It was then that I realised that I had to keep you safe. Safe from me. So the next day, I pleaded guilty. I was charged with murder, arson, destruction of property, terrorism and similar crimes. They told me to plead insanity as well. I was labelled schizophrenic and put into a secure mentally disabled prison facility with a life sentence.”</p><p>“Yet here you are.” His voice was now cold. I suspected that he knew nothing of the later developments of the case, just that my sentence had been revised and I was undergoing intense therapy. So I enlightened him.</p><p>“The first few months were tough. I knew I wasn’t insane and I never showed signs of schizophrenia. I was forced to take medicines. It was in the eighth month that I gave up. The medicines were affecting me badly, and I wondered if I could go on like that much longer. I realised that though I wasn’t insane when I had been sentenced, I was definitely losing my mind now. I wasn’t on suicide watch, so they never saw it coming.” The sharp intake of breath confirmed what I had already known. “There was a positive side to my attempt at taking my own life. The prosecutor on my case had a visitor. Tiana Murdoch. She had been a wallflower in school. Someone who I had never known and never paid attention to. Someone who craved my attention but never received it. Tiana hated you. She hated that you had what she would never have. She hated that you had <em>me</em>. So she made it her mission to take me away from you, for she believed that no one could love me better than her.” I let out a terrified laugh as I recalled the day she had been brought to visit me. Her smile was so full of love as she told me how I was better off in a prison than with a man who would never treat me right. She told me that she was going to confess so she could be there for me, love me in the very place that was sucking the life out of me. She swore to make it better. </p><p>I felt strong arms wrap themselves around me as my laughter turned into sobs. The fear that had consumed me for more than a year wracked through me, sending fierce tremors down my spine. Of all things that I could have imagined, a lesbian pyromaniac and psychopath who loved me wasn’t one. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I heard the pain in his voice, the guilt for having believed that I was capable of such atrocious crimes, the hurt for what I went through. My chest heaved as another sob tore through me and I remembered the last words that echoed in the courtroom as they dragged her away and declared me innocent.</p><p>
  <em>“I will know if you go back to him and I will find a way to kill him! Remember that, my beautiful Lee! Remember that I’ll do it for the same reason that I did the rest. I’ll do it because I love you!”</em>
</p><p>I sniffled, “Because I love you.”</p>
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